Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will be allowed to race each other throughout the season.

He also acknowledged that it was important to have two drivers who could be trusted by the team.

“You need to have the drivers who understand where the team came from, and that it’s important not to risk the image of such a brand,” he said. “We’re representing a big brand, so you need to know what you do. And they did it in a fantastic and spectacular way. I’m happy.”

He confirmed that the situation would remain unchanged.

“Yes, until we lose some front wings! Then we sit down again and discuss if this was [the right] strategy. They’re racing drivers, it’s academic… Let’s leave it there!”

Asked if he has any doubts about allowing them to race, in Bahrain he said: “Turn 3 after the start of the race I had doubts! I was like, ‘No please, not for one and a half hours now!’. And then at the end when we had the restart we discussed that we trusted the drivers. We knew that they wouldn’t risk their own car and the one of the other driver. Nico is still in the championship lead, it’s about collecting solid points.”

“You know what we said was exactly the same sentence to both of them, just reminding them in a moment before the heat would start just to say don’t forget what we discussed. This was not at all a strategic call, it was just a gentle reminder of where we came from.”

Regarding the decision to put Rosberg on primes in the middle stint, he said: “We knew that the second car only had a chance to win if you offset him with the strategy. Both cars were on a strategy to win the race.”

Wolff said that the team thought Rosberg would be able to pass Hamilton in the closing stint.

“That was the theory, but Lewis had an amazing first couple of laps on the prime. We saw it in a previous stint, one of the Force Indias proved to be really quick on the prime.”

Meanwhile Wolff said he was not frustrated by the negative comments from Bernie Ecclestone and Luca di Montezemolo.

“We had some good discussions with all of them today, and I think it’s pretty clear that we love F1 and we don’t want to talk F1 down, and this is the kind of spirit that we want to have in our future discussions. It’s not frustrating. It’s good that they came here, and I think that race came at the right time.”

One response to “Toto Wolff: “They did it in a fantastic and spectacular way…””

Adam, how big do you think Merc’s real advantage is? It seems to be around 2.5 – 3 seconds per lap. Horrible if one car is at the front: he can just cruise to the flag, but if they let their drivers carry on racing like that, then it’s going to be great.

Assuming they do let them carry on racing that hard, then it’s not going to be long before they have contact.